Tag Archives: frozen blueberries

Sunday night was also my Dad’s birthday and birthdays are kind of a big deal in our family. There are a few unique things that I think make a birthday in this house a bit different than what you might see elsewhere.

There are usually 7 of us, and now with Brent there are 8. So, it’s loud. Picture the stereotypical Italian family getting together and multiply that by 6 girls. Seriously loud.

Dinner is all out. The birthday person gets to pick what they what for dinner and that is what is whipped up. This time was a seafood pasta.

When singing Happy Birthday, sing as loud and as out of key as possible. Ear splitting high notes, piercing notes and anything else you can make your voice do. This is usually when the dogs run away in terror. If we have company, they think it’s weird at first then they join in with something we’ve never heard before. We all think it’s hilarious.

When picking out a card, it NEEDS to pop up. If it doesn’t pop up, put it down and find another. If you can find one that sings AND pops up, you probably have a winner. There is a competition for the best card and strangely enough, we have never shown up with the same card. Only every once in a while from year to year. Those immediately lose. Sorry.

Have fun. Obviously.

For my Dad’s birthday, I decided that I would make the cake and his favorite thing in the world is blueberry. So I decided to make a blueberry cake. Originally it was going to be a Blueberry Lemon Cake, but he didn’t really like that idea. He wanted chocolate. Chocolate it is.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Flour

1 Cup Sugar

6 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

3/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

3/4 Cup Water

1/2 Cup Blueberries, melted

1 Egg

Frosting Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Butter, softened

4 1/2 Cups Confectioner’s Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla

3 Tablepsoon Milk

1/2 Cup Frozen Blueberries, thawed and drained

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, stir the dry ingredients. Then, with a blender, blend the blueberries, egg and water.

2. Whisk the wet ingredients in with the dry. Be careful not to over mix the batter.

3. Bake in a greased round 8 inch pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. I made two of them in order to stack them for the cake.

For the Frosting:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until it is light and fluffy. Then gradually add in the confectioner’s sugar. Lastly, mix in the blueberries, and milk. Use the milk to get the consistency that you would like.

Easy! When the cake is completely cooled, COMPLETELY cooled. You can start frosting it. Just know that it needs to be stored in a chilled area because the frosting is made of butter.

I was struggling a little bit with the icing of it. But that’s a skill that I will pick up eventually 🙂

We all sat down for dinner and Maggie gave us a mini wine lesson on the two that she had picked out for dinner.

We sat down and had some seafood pasta with a delicious red sauce.

As we were sitting down, I grabbed one of the naked rigatoni still sitting in the strainer just to munch on. I was talking at the same time, and decided to goof around a little bit, so I blew through the rigatoni…IT WHISTLED! I felt like a five year old that just discovered the best thing ever! Why I never realized this when I was younger, I have no idea. I know I would have driven my mom nuts if I did figure it out earlier.

So fun! You just have to pinch the sides of it a little bit to restrict the air flow and it will make this loud, high pitched whistling noise. 🙂

After dinner, the cake came out and I was honestly a bit nervous about how it was going to go over. I have never made one of a birthday cakes and this one was a bit different in itself. I don’t know if you noticed…it has NO OIL. There is no butter, no canola oil, no nothing. The icing obviously has butter but the cake itself. Nada. It’s a healthy chocolate cake. YUP.

But it was delicious! The cake itself was really rich. The chocolate flavor really came through in it. The blueberries were also really apparent in the frosting. Big hit!

It was even better the second day. The blueberry flavor came out a lot more the second day.

When cake was finished and we were starting to clean up, my dad brought over the wish bone that I had been waiting to dry out for a few days. Brent and I broke it and I guesssssss my wish won’t come true. MER.

This whole weekend, I’ve been getting over the flu. I spent it catching up on some TV and some movies and sleeping. I was absolutely dying. I hate being sick. And I’ve still got the sniffles.

Anyways, I am on a mission to start using up some of the baking, pasta and canned goods in my house. I never really realized how much of it I have until I’ve started to attempt to put a dent in it. It’s madness. I could honestly eat for weeks just based upon my non-perishable items.

For breakfast, I decided to make some Whole Wheat Pancakes that turned out to be really light and fluffy. They were extremely good, and not as dense as I normally picture those whole wheat items.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

2 Tablespoon Dark Brown Sugar

2/3 Cup All Purpose Flour

5 Tablespoons Butter

1/3 Cup Ground Flaxseed

1 1/2 Cup Vanilla Almond Milk

1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder

2 Eggs

Directions:

1. Mix all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Soften and cut up the butter. Add it to the mix using a fork and mix it in until the batter is a sand like texture. Then mix in the almond milk and eggs.

3. Heat up the skillet to a medium heat and add your batter. When the batter bubbles, flip the pancake over.

For the last few pancakes, I added some chocolate chips just to spice things up a bit. It made me wish they were all smothered in chocolate chips.

I like adding things like the flaxseed to the pancakes because it adds a bit more protein to the pancake. Something that you never really see in a pancake unless you add some protein powder.

For the topping, I took some frozen blueberries and some frozen blackberries and heated them up. Then mashed them a bit to get the juices out.

I love these berry toppings and this was one of my favorites. I don’t end up using NEARLy as much syrup as if I were just depending on the syrup. I usually just sprinkle it over the berries and that does it.

YUMMO.

Last night I started to put a little tiny dent in christmas wrapping and my X-Mas cards. I wasn’t really in a crazy creative mood, so I think they turned out a little less stellar than I wanted them to…but they will do.

But they are going to work for now. I can already tell, that even though I don’t have too much on the books for this week, it’s going to be killer.

1. In a flat bowl, mix the eggs, buttermilk, cinnamon, protein powder and cocoa powder. Soak a slice of toast in the mix, on both sides.

2. Heat up a skillet to medium heat and spray it with cooking spray. Cook each side of the toast for about 1-2 minutes.

And donezo!

It was really good. I think I could have upped the cocoa powder a bit but with the blueberry topping, perfecto. I just heated up some frozen blueberries and sprinkled some confectioners sugar on top. There really isn’t any sugar in this dish at all, besides the natural sugar in the blueberries. It’s a great, high protein french toast.

I feel like French toast gets a bad rap because the majority of the time people smother it in syrup. But in reality, if you can do without the sugary syrup, it is equivalent to having eggs and toast with some blueberries. Who can argue with a breakfast like that?!

I tried to be SUPER COOL and make these into CHOCOLATE DRACULA FRENCH TOAST…but it looked more like an angel….

EPIC FAIL. Can you at least squint your eyes and shake your head side to side really quickly and maybe see the outline of a Dracula??

I tried…

Anyways….I’m really excited about what I have planned to bake up tonight. I’m going to take tonight to relax a bit…and make a DELICIOUS PUMPKINY dessert. I’m not telling what it is yet though…for fear that it might turn out like dracula…the complete opposite of what I’m going for…an angel.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

What’s your favorite way to make French Toast?? Does it include and unexpected ingredients??

The by far unexpected ingredient of this one is the protein powder…and the cocoa powder. I am convinced that you can add a little protein to just about anything.

This morning I actually got up and went for a run. It started off a bit rough, but ended strong. Not such a bad run and it felt good to get it out of the way.

When I got back, I mixed up this UNBELIEVABLE master piece. It tasted like Blueberry Cake. Legit. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Ingredients:

1 Frozen Banana

1 Cup Frozen Blueberries

1 Scoop Cake Batter Protein Powder

1/2 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder

3/4 Cup Vanilla Almond Milk

That simple. Just put it in a blender and blend until smooth. I am beginning to absolutely love this cake batter protein powder because I feel like the options are endless with it. You can really turn anything into a sweet cake flavored treat and mold it into what ever kind of cake flavor tickles your fancy.

Anyways, the rest of the day was just work work work. When I got back, Brent and I went on a fun little tour! Not too crazy or anything but entertaining. It was the Winter Park Boat Tour. It leaves just about 2 blocks away from my house and is 12 bucks a person. You just ride a cute little boat around the lakes in Winter Park and learn all about the history of the area.

To be honest, being from Boston, I didn’t think that Orlando had such a rich little history, but it turns out Winter Park is more influenced by the north than I thought!

We run past these little canals connecting the lakes and it’s really just so pretty.

Some of the little interesting facts about Winter Park:

A whole bunch of land was purchased by a man who lived in New England. He named it Winter Park in hopes of drawing more northerners to the area for the summers.

A few years later, the northerners in the area decided they needed to build a school and Mr Rollins donated 50,000 dollars of the 100,000 needed to start the school, and it was named Rollins College.

Mr Cornell was actually a huge contributor to the school and has several buildings named after him. This is the same Cornell that start Cornell University in upstate NY.

Rollins is the only university in Florida to have a Noble Prize winner alumni.

My favorite fact of the ENTIRE ride centered around this house:

This was the first Mr Roger’s Neighborhood! THE MR ROGERS attended Rollins college and was assigned a dorm. But he couldn’t fit his grand piano in the room so his parent found a room in this house for him to rent out. Definitely room for his piano in here.

I LOVED Mr Rogers as a kid! I always think of my brother when I think of that show. It was definitely a fav of his too.

WIth that, I leave you with a good night!

What was your favorite show as a kid??

There are so many goodies that we forget. Hey Dude. Pete and Pete. Angry Beavers. Ren and Stimpy. I really think that cartoons of today have NOTHING on what we had back then.

Yesterday was a loooooong day for me. I had to wake up early and drive out to Melbourne, which is an hour and a half from Orlando, work the whole day and drive back. So for breakfast I gave overnight oatmeal a go and I LOVED it. I was planning on making it again for this morning, but went on a baking frenzy instead. The pictures really don’t do it justice, I am going to have to make it again just to get a bit more decent photos.

Definitely making this again.

Ingredients:

1/3 Cup Rolled Oats

1/2 Cup Non-Fat Milk

1/3 Cup Plain Yogurt

1/2 Banana

1/2 Tablespoon Chia

Salt to Taste

Cinnamon to Taste

Just mix up all of the ingredients into a jar, bowl, etc and let it sit overnight. The milk and yogurt will soften the oats and turn it into a delicious oatmeal combo.

The next morning, just top it off with anything that you normally would top off oatmeal. I put:

1/2 Banana

1/2 Cup Frozen Blueberries, Melted

1/3 Cup Whole Wheat Rice Crispies

The blueberries really added to the sweetness of the oatmeal and the rice crispies gave it that crunch. They even Snap, Crackled and Popped in the oatmeal! Even now I feel like I love hearing it just as much as when I was a kid.

I ate on my drive out to Melbourne and got there at 8. They had loads of work waiting for me. When it was about lunch time, I asked the girls what they normally do for lunch…they said nothing. I thought it was a joke…but it wasn’t. I didn’t end up eating for the rest of the day. I was about to eat my desk when I left, seriously.

When I got home, I wanted to make this Broccoli Souffle that I have had my eye on for a while from EatingWell. Not my usual, quick and easy, but it was fantastic! Well worth it. It took me about 20 minutes to make and 20 minutes in the oven.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups Chopped Broccoli Florets

1 Tablespoon Butter

1 Tabelspoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons Flour

1 1/4 Cups Almond Milk

1 Teaspoon Dijon Mustard

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Goat Cheese

3 Large Eggs, separated

2 Egg Whites

1/4 Teaspoon Cream of Tartar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325. In a large saucepan, melt the butter and the olive oil at a medium-high temperature. Whisk in the flour for about 1 minute. Be careful not to let it burn and adjust the heat down if you need to. It should turn into a caramel color. Microwave the broccoli for 1-2 minutes and set aside. You want them to be soft and crispy.

2. Add in the milk, mustard, rosemary and salt. Whisk constantly until it is thickened.

3. Remove from heat, and immediately add goat cheese and 3 egg yolks. Put the mixture aside in a large bowl.

4. In a medium sized bowl, beat 5 egg whites until soft peaks form. Then add in the cream of tartar and mix until there are hard peaks.

5. Using a spatula, add in half off the egg white mixture into the large bowl with the wet mix. Fold it into each other. You do NOT want it to flatten out. Then add the second half to it as well, with the broccoli florets.

6. Grease the ramekins with non-stick spray. Now pour the batter into 4 10 ounce ramekins or 2- 2 1/2 Quart Souffle Dishes. I used two smaller ramekins and 1 quart sized dish. Place them in the oven for 20 minutes. The large may need 30 minutes. With a thermometer, the inside should read 160 and the tops should be hard to the touch.

You want to serve these ASAP, because they will deflate a bit. But they are DELICIOUS! It’s really light, but packed with flavor. It only has about 220 calories. So I had this and an english muffin and called it dinner.

So Yummy. I was really in the baking mood at this point, so I whipped up a batch of the Surprise Me Oatmeal Cookies. Those are some of my favorite cookies I have ever made. Although, I am due for some pumpkin cookies!

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I am not a Registered Dietician (yet) and my posts reflect only my opinion as a person searching for easy ways to stay healthy. Feel free to make your own opinions on each recipe and post and share with the rest of us!